Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Here are just a few of the many pin up's I've collected over the years of The Fighter. Enjoy.Kevin - I forget his last name and I forget what projects he's worked on. I just know I got this drawing as a trade with the artist. I gotta say I got a killer deal on this one. It was so much fun sitting next to him and he had me laughing the entire convention.Stan Tanaka - This is part of a bigger picture that Stan did. It featured several Instant Press characters (You can see White Knife in the foreground) battling it out with Devil's Due character, mainly G.I. Joe. This part featuring The Fighter was such a great action shot. I loved the ninja stars sticking on his staff as he lunges forward in battle. This picture is colored by Outlaw.Nick - I forget his last name as well. Boy I should really remember to write these down. This was done at a Chicago show as well. He did such a great job in such a nice style.Puck - This was an interesting one. Puck did this in one sitting, while sitting on the floor. I loved the colors on it not to mention the feel.Matt Wendt - A good friend who did an awesome job on this. He sat down that nite to do a donation piece for Fallcon and after he did a killer G.I. Joe pic he whipped this one out.

Last but not least (For this posting) is a drawing by David Gruba. That's rite. He doesn't just write comics. He draws too. Don't let him fool you. He's hiding his art skills and once in a while he'll let it out.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The Fighter started off as a Casey Jones inspired character. Thus he was to fight crime on the streets and clean up the city. Somehow, he turned into a character out in space. It lead me to create two alternate versions of Fighter to explain how he was an Earth hero and a Intergalactic riff raff. As Mr Kill's right hand man, he was to go out and take care of any and every task. This made him a real jerk and heartless.Often times even though The Fighter never had his own comic he appeared in others. Rebels: Rulers of Razura was his second appearance. He was a big part of the Imp comic book (no copies available).Later on it was decided that The Fighter would be Earth bound and a true blue crime fighter in every respect.

Monday, July 19, 2010

With news of the movie, The Fighter coming closer and closer I keep being reminded that I should have done something with my book alot sooner. The Fighter has a rich history in my head and I've always wanted to get his own book off the ground. Due to my indecisiveness on how to tell the story I've never been able to get the book going. The most I've accomplished was a first issue that was never released. The first issue was drawn by Dann Phillips (Kreetor, Starbomb). I'm thinking of getting something done once I've finished the latest issue of Dorks. Here's a look at the original drawing of The Fighter from 1992: The longest running joke at Instant Press is that when Dave Gruba was publishing, he asked me to do Dorks for his anthology zine. At the last minute I changed my mind and decided to give him something else. The Fighter was the first thought but sadly, I was unable to draw humans. How could I draw an action comic when I could barley draw people? Thus Rebels: Rulers of Razura was given to him. Imp was the first original character I had created and with him being an alien it was easier to draw. At the end of the second installment, there was an appearance from The Fighter. He was the right hand man to Mr. Kill:With the cancellation of the third Grubbmaster Pieces The Fighter never made it as a full appearance. The ending of our running joke is that Dave was unable to steal The Fighter from me because he was never mentioned by name. Guess it's only funny to us.

After things started falling apart at Instant Press with several of our projects I was feeling a bit down. As I was thinking about what to do about the situation I started thinking about my own projects. I got the idea almost right away to ask Dann Phillips to work on The Fighter. The idea excited me to no extent and once I saw Dann's drawings on him it exceeded all expectations.

One day I hope to get this back on track. I hope to have the same artist work on the project as well. Until that happens, I'll have to deal with a movie coming out by the same name.

Friday, July 16, 2010

I know that that sounds weird considering that there is already an issue 5 but let me explain. In trying to jump start the new series I got wrapped up in redoing the original series. Once I got started on it I started loving the way the old stuff was coming to life. When I was redoing the fifth issue that's when it hit me. There was a way to redo the original series and incorporate the new stuff at the same time. Issue five will be altered mildly but in a big way. Once issue six hits it'll take a small break in the story to tie together the old with the new. It's pretty exciting to me and I hope it'll be to old and new readers alike. You'll be able to read the old books and still be able to follow the new story.

Here's just a look at one of the things I'm proud of in terms of my skills having come a long way.Dorks Issue 5 will be available for Fallcon in October. Mark my words.

P.S. I've enlisted some artist to help me out for a couple pages. For those that have read the original version will have an idea on what was done.